When Konan returned to the Akatsuki Organization's base earlier, she received a suspicious piece of information, so she had already gone to patrol the relevant area and would likely not return until tomorrow afternoon.
However, Hanzou had scheduled their meeting for the morning. Yahiko deliberated, but ultimately felt the opportunity was too precious to wait for Konan, deciding to go with Nagato to meet Hanzou first.
The Akatsuki Organization celebrated their recognition. Yahiko and Nagato returned to their rooms to rest at midnight to conserve energy, leaving the other members to celebrate until late into the night, finally collapsing into sleep as dawn broke.
Not long after they fell asleep, Yahiko and Nagato set off to meet Hanzou.
As soon as the two left, White Zetsu surrounded the entire base underground. Anyone or any animal entering the encirclement would be eliminated.
"Should we keep this for Mukuro?"
A White Zetsu, holding a mouse it had caught, asked another, seemingly smarter White Zetsu beside it.
The small gray creature was squeaking wildly, struggling violently, and trying to escape.
It was even wearing a vest and carrying a scroll on its back, clearly intended to deliver a message to someone inside the base.
The seemingly smarter White Zetsu pulled out the scroll and stored it, replying, "The scroll can be given to Mukuro, right? Just eat the mouse directly, leave no trace."
"Oh, oh." The White Zetsu holding the mouse nodded, opened its mouth wide, swallowed it whole, patted its stomach, and wondered, "Why isn't it moving?"
"Nonsense, it's dead."
...Today was a rare day with a hint of sunshine, as if the Akatsuki Organization had finally seen the path ahead, no longer shrouded by dark clouds and fine rain.
The meeting place Hanzou had arranged was in a low valley, with extremely steep slopes on both sides, making it an excellent spot for an ambush.
The deeper Nagato went, the more uneasy he felt. A sense of tension gradually permeated from his heart to his limbs, making his back feel cold.
"Yahiko, we—"
Just as he started to speak, Yahiko stopped, looking up at the cliff ahead, which was also the direction of the rising sun.
"We're here."
Hanzou immediately appeared.
The tall, sturdy figure of the Amegakure leader blocked the sunlight, casting a long shadow from his feet that stretched through the large shadows beneath the cliff, all the way to where the two stood.
Appearing with him were nearly a hundred Anbu Ninja, some wearing Amegakure attire, others in unfamiliar styles, densely surrounding the entire valley floor, leaving no escape.
Killing intent surged, condensing into a misty rain, merging with the expanding dark clouds on the horizon, gradually swallowing the pale sky.
This was clearly an attempt to eliminate the two of them.
A sense of crisis crept up Nagato's spine to the back of his head. His hair stood on end, his scalp tingled, and his mind raced, frantically trying to figure out how to escape.
Yahiko stared blankly at the high and mighty Hanzou, an endless desolation welling up in his heart, knowing that he had completely lost to reality.
He had given almost everything, even staking his life, but it still couldn't earn him even a shred of trust from the other party.
Only then did he have to admit how prescient Naraku's warning had been years ago.
That child had seen everything from the beginning, kindly warning him, but he had still stubbornly walked to the end of this path.
—Because he refused to believe that the world was so cruel.
A sudden cold wind blew, scattering Yahiko's melancholy and pulling him out of his memories.
He braced himself, preparing to break through with Nagato.
But the figure who appeared next to Hanzou immediately chilled his blood.
"Konan!"
Konan, incapacitated by inhaling poison gas, had her hands tied behind her back, allowing Hanzou to drag her forward and hold a Kunai to her throat.
Hanzou's slightly aged voice, muffled by his gas mask, sounded even more merciless.
"Yahiko, I want you, the Akatsuki leader, to die here. If you resist, this woman is dead."
Yahiko clenched his back teeth, wanting to rush forward and rescue Konan, but the cold glint of the blade next to her artery suddenly jolted him awake, leaving him in an agonizing dilemma.
A Kunai streaked through the air like a black current, embedding itself in the mud by Nagato's feet.
"You, the red-haired one over there, pick it up and use this Kunai to kill Yahiko. As long as you do it, I can let you and this woman both return alive."
Nagato heard Hanzou mention his red hair and instinctively looked up at him. The moment he understood the meaning of those words, his whole body trembled slightly, and his brain's function almost came to a halt.
Dark clouds spread across the sky, and the rain began to fall again.
Konan's vision was blurred by the rain, unable to discern the expressions of the two below, she could only scream hoarsely, "Stop! Nagato, don't mind me! Both of you, hurry and go!"
Hanzou simply watched her shout, with no intention of stopping her.
He knew that no matter what choice the two below made, they would not abandon this woman, even at the cost of their lives.
Yes, the Akatsuki leader was such a naive, admirable, yet also detestable fellow.
Sure enough, Yahiko had already made his choice.
He spread his arms, calmly facing his end.
Yahiko understood that he had lost completely; his excessive optimism about the goodness of human nature had led Akatsuki to this desperate situation.
Compared to him, an unqualified leader, ensuring that Nagato, who possessed the Rinnegan, survived was the only hope for preserving their comrades.
For him, for Konan, for all the Akatsuki members who trusted and followed them, Nagato had to live!
The ideal of Akatsuki was shattered... Only the Rinnegan could save the world.
"Nagato," he looked at his close friend with whom he had shared life and death for many years, his face calm, "Kill me."
"No... I can't..."
Nagato refused almost reflexively, struggling to breathe in the rain.
The sky grew bright, thunder boomed, and even the vast expanse of heaven and earth transformed into an abyssal beast.
As the string named "reason" stretched to its breaking point, his ear canals suddenly filled with a viscous silence.
"Nagato! Do it!"
"No!"
"Hurry and kill him! Don't you care about this woman's life!?"
Yahiko's urgent, sharp shouts, Konan's heartbreaking cries, Hanzou's cold and ruthless urging, and even the broken syllables squeezed from his own throat, all seemed to come through a thick curtain of water, only a blurry, chaotic reverberation reaching him.
When he could hear sounds clearly again, Nagato found that he had already picked up the Kunai.
He looked up, bewildered and helpless, seeing Konan's face full of terror from above, so he turned to Yahiko for help.
"Yahiko..."
What responded to Nagato in this heavy rain was a black figure rushing towards him, a fleeting glimpse of orange hair, a slight resistance from the Kunai's handle, and warm, gushing blood on his hand.
He was knocked back a couple of steps, then heard a whisper beside his ear that instantly froze all his blood.
"Nagato, you and Konan... must survive, no matter what..."
"Because you... are the savior of this world..."
"If it were you... perhaps... you really could..."
The weight on his shoulder suddenly became heavy. Yahiko lost strength and slid from him, his body hitting the ground and splashing a large amount of water.
Blood overflowed from the wound, staining a large, dazzling red patch.